InDnegev

4,000 hippies, one million cigarette buts, four million falafel balls, three stages, 70 performers, 20 staff members, three days of music, one dessert, one InDnegev. This was my experience at the InDNegev music festival last weekend. The festival was one of the most amazing, spiritual, and fun events that I have ever been apart of, and brought together many aspect of Israeli culture.

On Tuesday word got around Section 1, that a small alternative music festival was to take place in the desert, at a reasonable cost of 180 Shekel. Many of my friends love alternative music also known as “indie”, and were pumped to buy tickets. Our hopes were quickly dashed, when we went to the website to find that the tickets were completely sold out. Somehow we found a loophole in the Israeli ticket system, and soon enough all fifteen of us were packing our frame packs with pitot, hippie bandannas, tents, and cooking stoves.  

 We arrived in Ber Sheva on Thursday night, to find a mass of young Israeli’s (equipped with camping materials for three days) aggressively pushing their way towards a massive egged bus. We arrived at the festival site around dark, to find a sea of tents, and hippies everywhere. We set up camp, and quickly made the three-minute walk to the two main stages.

 I quickly noticed that InDnegev is a very low budget, organic, and independent music festival, which attracts a loyal fan base of enthusiastic Israelis. There were no commercial food stalls, logos, or trailers anywhere. Art of all forms were everywhere, with wildly painted tents, sculptures, and a few clowns doing tricks.

 The bands were almost all indie bands that no one had really heard of, but were nonetheless a lot of fun to listen to. At around one a.m., I made my way to the bonfire at the back of the camping area, and met a nice woman from Jerusalem named Shiri. Shiri spoke only Hebrew to me, and we had a nice conversation about her being Vegan, and how she currently is not in school.

 On Friday morning, we woke up to loud funk music being blasted from the massive speakers. Time to get up and start dancing. There were a few funk bands that were a lot of fun. It got very hot during the day, so in order to cool off the crowds, the festival implemented a drip sprinkler system to cool us off.

 My favorite performers of the day were four Chasidim, who played crazy rock music and rapped.

 In the midst of all these secular Israeli’s, three Chabad Rabbi’s were determined to have a successful Shabbas, and erected a massive tent with a torah and mashiach flags waving high. Only in Israel would Judaism be brought to a music festival in the middle of nowhere. We attended Shabbat services with thumping guitar solos in the background, which a very unique and strange experience.

 The headliner for the night was Mass Dubstep, who started their set at 3 AM, dropping some crazy electronic dance beats. All the Year Course guys took off our shirts and started a mosh pit, until the director of the festival pulled the plug at around 4am.

  The food at Indie was all local and pretty cheap. I had the most amazing Falafel, which was drenched in home made mango sauce that literally melted in my mouth.

 We spent the last few hours of the Festival dancing to the British-Israeli band Umlala. We were front row and knew all their lyrics. The last band of the night was called Funkenstein. These guys were the Israeli Earth Wind And Fire, and dressed in elves style suits and hippie spandex. The sun was setting over the desert, creating a scenic picture to end an amazing three days. I really didn’t want to leave, but there is always Boomamella, which is an even bigger music festival coming up in the spring in Eilat!

                                   Good morning InDnegev

                                                      We want Mashiach now!

The orange stuff was the mango sauce

                                  Anyone want to take a cigarette bath?

                           The Crowd

                                                              This woman was very pregnant

                          Some festival art

                                             Artsy tents

                                                              Shtar keeping it kosher

                                    This was a staff guy who was wearing a kilt

                                        Geting intimate with kilt guy!

This was the guitarist and singer for Electronic Zoo. This dude played, sang, acted, and even looked like Jimi Hendrix. Defenitly one of the best acts of the festival. He went crazy during his set, making weird faces and attempting stage splits.

Gap Yah

A really fun Klezmer band

Funkenstein getin funky!

             And the sun sets over Indnegev....